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9 reasons why social media has become an epic fail for your business

Many entrepreneurs I talk to are frustrated they aren’t seeing anything come of their social media efforts. They’re ready to give up, thinking it’s all been a huge waste of time.

This is when I tell them this marketing isn’t as easy as creating and posting content. Indeed, there’s much more that goes into making social media marketing work effectively for a business.

So if you can relate and feel like you’re spending hours on social media and think it’s all been an epic waste of time, then it’s time to take an honest look at what you are doing.

Social media is a prominent advertising, marketing and lead generating tool for businesses today but the trick is being strategic about your efforts.

Keep reading the rest of this article for ways that you might need to be more strategic and turn your efforts into a profit-making endeavor.

Here are nine common mistakes business owners and entrepreneurs make with their social media:

1. You Aren’t Relevant. It’s really important to know your audience (aka your ideal client) and choose posts they will find meaningful and useful. Stay on topic within a range of subject matter they care about.

For example if you have a work-at-home-mom Facebook page, posting a story about potty training tips is a little off base. Yes, it’s a parenting article, but it’s not about home business.

2. You Don’t Have a Plan. It’s really important to map out a social media marketing calendar and decide what are you promoting and when. Ensure you’re posting when you know the most amount of followers will see that post.

Be sure to write articles and posts that are in alignment with your sales goals and ones that you know your ideal target market would appreciate reading.

When the stars are aligned, magic happens.

3. You’re Following Someone Else’s Blueprint For Success. You know your target audience better than anyone. What works for one social media guru may not work for you.

It’s OK to get ideas and strategies, but the real test is when you try it. Look at your analytics and see if your posts get the engagement and response you desired.

Do what works for your business, not what you think is working for someone else.

4. Your Metrics Are Not Specific Enough. What is your social media goal for a campaign you are running? Is it brand engagement, visibility, website traffic, lead generation or sales?

Each goal will be measured with different tools. Use the right tool to measure the metric that accurately reflects your achievement for that goal.

It’s important to offer a good mix of value-oriented posts that are sprinkled with some calls to action. If you promote too heavily, you’ll turn off your audience and they will stop following you so make sure the bulk of your posts truly engages their interest.

6. You Never Post Original Content. Fans are attracted to you because of who you are and what you know. They want to hear from you and see your original articles, freebies, surveys, quotes and graphics.

So give them something just from you instead of always sharing other people’s content.

7. You Aren’t Interacting With Your Audience. Posting and leaving without interacting with your followers is a sure-fire way to tell your followers not to bother commenting again.

Monitor your pages and respond quickly to comments. Write posts that ask readers opinions and thoughts and get engaged with the conversation.

Social media has great potential to be a two-way conversation. Be inviting, open, responsive and build relationships with your fans.

8. You’re Not Patient Enough. Rome wasn’t built in a day and social media won’t make you a millionaire quickly either.

Social media marketing is part of a ‘relationship’ or ‘inbound’ marketing strategy, which is based on the premise of developing relationships with your followers over time.

With this methodology, comes trust that once someone has grown to know, like and trust you, they will then be much more willing to purchase from you. It all takes time. Patience and consistency is the key to social media marketing success.

9. You Don’t Have a Team to Help You. If you’re doing your social media all by yourself, it may be time to delegate some of that task as part of your marketing team.

A social media specialist can help you create a strategy, develop themes that align with your business, curate content, schedule posts, monitor comments and mentions, and analyze the results.

Your social media team may also include a graphic designer to make graphics, a content curator/poster, and an analyst. If you want to dive deep and boost your results, a team will help you get there faster.

Social media is a powerful way to build your brand exposure but going in with no strategy is akin to throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping something sticks.